Despite colleges saying that there are no test score requirements for admission, their admission statistics give us a pretty good idea of what scores students need to get in, and with the return of required standardized testing the score ranges for each college is more important than ever before.
To help students, parents and teachers/counselors better digest this information, we've loaded the score ranges of all major American universities from state schools to Ivy Leagues into a nifty lookup tool.
Instructions
Enter your ACT score from 1 to 36 to retrieve a list of US universities whose 25th to 75th percentile ACT Score range contains your score.
The score ranges from the tool provide the 25th and 75th percentile ACT scores of admitted students from each college.
We typically recommend students to aim for the 75th percentile score as many students admitted with lower scores typically have some kind of advantage (e.g. legacy or athletic recruitment) or extremely impressive extracurriculars.
ACTs are making a comeback, but standardized test scores are far from the only factor colleges look at when evaluating an applicant. School grades (GPA), extracurriculars and application essays are all important factors as well.
GPA, in particular, is important because just like ACT scores, it measures a student's academic performance. Colleges expect that students achieve a similar performance between school grades and test scores. An applicant with very strong ACT scores but a subpar GPA, for instance, could raise red flags because there is a lack of consistency.
Of course, every high school's academic rigour is different, and admissions offers know this. They will use the historic academic performance from past applicants and applicants from schools of similar academic rigour as a benchmark for what the GPA-test score relationship should be.
For more information on the college admissions process, check out our comprehensive suite of college admissions resources.
If your ACT scores are within (or better yet, exceeds) the ranges of your top college choices, congrats! You are one step closer on your college application journey, and you can work on the other academic components discussed above or beef up your extracurricular activities.
If your scores aren't quite within range yet - don't worry! Find out which question types you're struggling with the most and focus your studying there. Start with a free diagnostic test to see where you need to improve.